Gaza rally marks Hamas's 20th anniversary

Tens of thousands of people have gathered in the centre of Gaza City to celebrate the founding of Hamas 20 years ago.

Katiba Square was thronged with men, women and children waving green flags and banners and the crowd was patrolled by masked men from the group’s military wing.

The rally came just a month after Hamas opened fire on the crowd at a similar mass gathering held by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah, killing several people.

At the Hamas rally the group’s leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniya, reaffirmed their commitment to armed struggle against Israel, saying, "Resistance and jihad is the best path to the liberation of Palestine, not negotiations and meetings, sitting at round tables and exchanging smiles and chuckles with the Jews".

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In a speech recorded on Friday at his base in Damascus, the group’s exiled leader, Khaled Meshaal, warned that the Palestinians could launch a new uprising against Israeli occupation like the intifadas of 1987 and 2000.

“Our people are capable of launching a third and fourth intifada until the dawn of victory rises up”, he said.

Meshaal also stated that Mahmoud Abbas lacked the support of the Palestinian people. In January 2006 Hamas won a landslide victory over Fatah in democratic parliamentary elections.

They overcame forces loyal to Abbas and seized control of Gaza in June.

While the president has said he is willing to enter into negotiations with Hamas if they give control of Gaza back to the Palestinian Authority, Hamas’s Ismail Haniya called at the rally for dialogue with Fatah “without conditions”.

Israel, the European Union and the United States regard Hamas as a terrorist organisation and in October Israel began restricting fuel supplies in Gaza, leading to what the World Health Organisation described on Monday as an “intolerable” humanitarian situation.

Khaled Meshaal admitted that Hamas’s 20th anniversary came amid "difficult circumstances and a painful situation for the besieged Palestinians in Gaza."

Despite the increasingly harsh conditions in the territory, the rally was the largest show of support for Hamas since they seized control there.